Just as I closed the door, I heard the most childlike—hell, I don't even know the word. Innocent? Stupid?
Because right outside my doorstep was a bloated Gigantamax Pokémon. Yeah, you heard me.
Max was standing there, shirt sticking to his sweaty belly, his head way too big for his twiggy arms, grinning like a toddler with candy. Bro was built like an armored meatball.
"Can you not just start a normal conversation for once, Kyle?" he asked, raising a brow.
"Yeah, sure, why not?" I smirked. "But hey, do you remember that today's the last day to submit our college application form?"
And that did it. His goofy grin crumbled into a grotesque grimace, veins bulging across his forehead. Bro looked like he was fighting the worst constipation battle the world had ever seen.
I couldn't help but laugh. "Enough overacting, meatball… Ahem! Max, let's go now."
Max groaned dramatically, waddling beside me like every step was a personal insult. "Man, this sun is packing serious heat today. The government must've cranked it up to level hellfire."
"Yeah, blame the weather system," I muttered, adjusting my jacket.
"Oh, and did you know," Max continued, puffing out his chest, "that the author of Oracle: The Chosen Heir put his work on hiatus?"
I froze mid-step. "What? No way. You're kidding."
"Dead serious. Been a month now."
I threw my hands up. "Unbelievable! That novel's a goddamn masterpiece. Top-tier world-building, amazing characters, and the one series that actually made me cry like a little bitch when—"
"—when Aiden sacrificed his arm for his sister, yeah yeah," Max cut in, laughing. "Don't act like you're the only one with feelings, emo boy. If it weren't for Oracle, you and I wouldn't even have met. Remember?"
I cracked a smile despite myself. He was right. We met in a library—two strangers ranting about the same book, both too stubborn to shut up until we ended up talking for hours. That was years ago.
"Guess I owe that author a drink," I muttered.
"More like your life," Max said, elbowing me.
I snorted. "Dramatic much?"
But then I heard it—faint cracking noises. Like porcelain being stepped on. I stopped walking. The sound grew louder, closer.
"…Hey. Do you hear that?"
Max tilted his head. "Hear wha—"
The air split. Reality fractured like glass, shards of color and light scattering before us. Buildings warped, sky bent inward, the ground rippled like liquid. And no one around us noticed. They kept walking, laughing, scrolling through their phones, blind to the world tearing apart.
My heart thundered. "Max—are you seeing this? Max?!"
The scenery ripped wide open, and suddenly I was staring into an abyss so vast it swallowed everything. A black hole blossomed in the distance, expanding, pulling the horizon inward with a pressure so crushing it made my ribs ache.
My vision burned white. A line of text appeared:
{ protocol initiated… access denied, error!
Reinitializing protocol… error! error! error! error! }
My head throbbed. "Max, what the hell is happening—"
But when I turned, Max wasn't laughing anymore.
He was holding a dagger.
"…Max?" I choked out, voice cracking.
His face was blank. No—worse than blank. It was twitching, glitching, flickering like bad reception. His grin snapped too wide, then shrank, then widened again. For a second, his face melted into my mother's. Then into my sister's. Then my father's. Then back to Max—like a slideshow from hell.
"What… are you…" My throat locked up.
Before I could move, the dagger slid between my ribs.
I gasped, lungs seizing as fire erupted in my chest. The blade twisted. My scream never left my mouth—blood gurgled up instead.
"Max—"
His face flickered again, and for one brief, heart-shattering second, it was really him. My Max. My brother in all but blood.
"…Sorry, Kyle," he whispered, voice breaking. "For the Singularity."
But I couldn't hear it.
My eardrums ruptured as pressure exploded in my skull. The pain was unbearable, drowning out his voice, his words, everything. My vision blurred, my limbs shook, and I collapsed to the ground, staring up at him—at the glitching mess of faces, of family, of betrayal.
The world kept shattering, and all I could think was—
I never had many friends… and the one I thought was a brother…
Blood filled my mouth. My body convulsed. His blade carved deeper, tearing through flesh, through hope, through everything.
Why… why Max?
The abyss swallowed me whole.